In R'iia's Name (Another kind of awakening)
by HufflePunkie
Summary: Before she joined the resistance to fight the evil First Order, Rey, a lonely girl who lived off what she found on the planet Jakku, led a very different life. Jessika Pava, in the middle of a reconnaissance mission is stranded on a desert planet. This is their story, this is what happened... before the Awakening.


_**N/A: Based on the novel: Before the Awakening, by Greg Rucka, (2015) and Star Wars characters. I just borrowed them so we could have a little bit of Reyva fun.**_

* * *

 **CHAPTER 1**

 **Before she joined the resistance to fight the evil First Order, Rey, a lonely girl who lived off what he found on the desert planet Jakku, led a very different life.**

 **This is her story, this is what happened... before the Awakening.**

The teedo called the storm _X'us R'iia_. It had a name because the teedo believed that it was always the same, that it came back again and again. They said it was the breath of the god R'iia, a god who was not at all benevolent; and for that reason they blamed the storm for many things: from the famine that had ravaged that part of Jakku for years, it was also the cause that the water had disappeared, to the reason why their lugga beasts had become disobedient.

Besides, they made it responsible for the intruders that plagued their land, for all those big metal splinters filled with so many soft beings that had crashed into the sand all those years before. According to the teedo, the cemeteries of ships were a monument to R'iia's wrath.

Most teedos were harmless, scavengers busy with their business, much like Rey and the others. However, there were orthodox teedos, fanatics known for attacking both their coreligionists and the other scrap dealers, assuring them that what they did was blasphemy and that, someday, their god R'iia would punish them all for their sins. The _X'us R'iia_ would take care of it.

Rey didn't believe a single word of that story, but she didn't believe in many things other than in herself.

One morning, like so many others, Rey was at the top of the superstructure of one of the old war cruisers half buried in the sand, hoping to find some loot that the other scavengers had overlooked. The dry air of Jakku shuddered around her, almost expectantly. Rey felt it in all of her nerve terminals before seeing it.

She peaked out and saw the storm forming on the horizon. She knew immediately that it was going to be intense. The _X'us R'iia_ was approaching violently. It was time to leave.

She had been climbing without restraint through the rubble and it always took less time (which was perhaps paradoxical) when she went up than when she had to go down. When you went down, gravity became your big concern, and doing it in a hurry was an almost guaranteed method of hurting yourself. Although she knew from experience, she descended quickly, almost too quickly, and risked jumping the last ten feet she had left before reach the ground. The sand could be soft if you were at an adequate distance, but that was not the case. From that height, it was like landing on metal. The impact shook her ankles and made a sharp pain travel from her calves to her knees. She used her staff to get up and pressed her way to the speeder.

Rey's speeder was a powerful repulsor vehicle, built by the young woman from salvaged pieces. The speeder was fast and could carry a considerable load, so it was ideal for its use in the Jakku Ships Cemetery. It was very heavy and would be difficult for any other pilot to control, but fortunately Rey was a skilled pilot as well as an ingenious mechanic.

The girl turned on the speeder, the powerful turbojets, rescued from an old cargo ship, roared instantly. From there, it was a race home, Rey fired the speeder at full speed as much as she could force it through the desert, with the rising wind chasing her. With one hand she pulled the end of her long scarf under her belt and wrapped around her mouth and nose. Not for the first times he wished she had protective goggles and cursed herself for not having faund any recently. The last pair she had found had been sold to Unkar in Niima for two portions, barely enough food to silence her stomach for a day. It had been a bad business when she accepted and she knew it. She was hungry, she had told herself that she would find another pair soon and had sold them without further ado.

That had happened almost three months ago.

Rey dared to look back on her frantic race against R'iia's anger. The flash of 4 ships that passed at full speed in front of the storm caught her attention.

The wind became more intense and the sand more abrasive. Rey urged her ship to speed up the pace.

* * *

Jessika "Testor" Pava maneuvered frantically in front of the most horrible sandstorm she had ever seen. She couldn't explain how everything had gone so badly.

Her mission was really simple. Scan the Outer Rim in search of the presence of ships of the First Order. The Resistance had received reports of large destroyers circulating in the area, which had put the New Republic on full alert. The First Order was unpredictable and not knowing what their plans were in that inhospitable area made everyone very nervous.

So General Organa had sent three of the X-Wings T-70 along with their fastest pilots to scan the area. If they saw something suspicious they had to return immediately and inform them of the exact coordinates. Jess knew something was happening. Plans were being carried out. The looks that crossed the faces in the high command of the Resistance confirmed it, but she didn't know what it could be. Her job was not to question, but to follow orders. And that had taken her to this place.

The X-Wings had separated to investigate on three different planets, she had ended up in Jakku. The junkyard was an unlikely place for First Order activities but they had spies everywhere and no clue should be overlooked.

She had barely gotten close to the atmosphere of the deserted planet when, from out of nowhere, five TIE fighters appeared and aproached her in fast speed. Jessika tried to communicate with the other pilots but the signal was being interrupted.

"Blue 3 to blue leader. Blue 3 to Blue leader. I am being attacked by five TIE ships of the First Order. I repeat, I am being attacked!"

The silence of the communication devices was the only thing that was heard in the cabin until a series of beeps was heard. Jess's flight droid informed her that communications were dead, no one would hear her.

"Thanks R. Very encouraging of you"

The R0-4LO unit again made sounds but they were suffocated by a flurry of shots from the TIEs. Jessika had no choice but to ignore the astromech and its protests to initiate evasive maneuvers.

The pilot reviewed her options. Her mission was recognition only. Enter and exit at full speed. All her weapons were light, with the fuel needed for a short flight.

The X-Wing alarms went off when the ship entered the sights of the enemy fighters.

Jessika forced her ship to turn sharply to the left, to her surprise one of the TIEs wanted to attack her on that same flank so she only had to aim and shoot for the little fighter to explode in the vacuum of space. That was the way Jessika flew, orderly and effectively but unpredictable. Her maneuvers were pure precision.

She started another turn, putting her right wing as axis and intercepting another TIE that disappeared with the same speed as the previous one. Maybe she could escape this mess.

Before she could finish with that thought, she was hit by the firing of a third TIE that was still stuck to her rear. The R0 beeps and bops informed her that the rear servo-actuator had been taken out of line by the shot.

She would have to land.

She adjusted the trajectory to enter Jakku atmosphere with only the power of her 4 fusion engines located on the wings, with the three remaining TIEs behind her.

The entrance to the planet was not a problem, what Jessika didn't expect was the impressive sandstorm in which she had just entered. As soon as they left the initial resistance of the atmosphere, one of the TIE was devoured by a whirlwind of sand and wind that dragged it into the storm. In an instant it had disappeared. The Resistance pilot managed to get ahead of the devilish phenomenon of nature cursing her luck. The two remaining TIEs were still determined to knock her down. A column of sand rose in front of her and she could barely avoid it, the nearest TIE couldn't do it. Jessika didn't see it anymore.

There was only one left. Planning the way to evade this last TIE, the girl turned towards the clearest horizon, leaving behind the darkness of the storm, to be able to maneuver more freely. The TIE was getting closer and closer. At that moment a heavy electric shock reached the two spaceships. The TIE took the worst part and Jessika saw how it disintegrated into a thousand pieces. But she wasn't in much better condition. The lghtning reached her right wing, now non-existent. She had lost three engines in the battle and the one she had left was not enough to return home. She look at the vast expanse of the desert and pray that the sand was as smooth as it looked from that height. R0 had stopped responding after the electric shock, she would have to land without the help from her astromech. Summoning all her expertise, Jessika directed her X-Wing into a valley between two giant dunes, the storm was on her heels.

Just at the moment she thought she could land, a gust of wind moved the tail of the sip and destabilized her. The X-Wing fell violently on the sand. The pilot was alive but her conscience totally abandoned her. Jessika watched as the storm engulfed her ship as the blackness claimed her.

* * *

The storm was about to hit Rey when she reached the wreckage of the AT-AT walker brought down near the outskirts of the Shipyard Cemetery. The wind whipped her in gusts, with enough force to flip the speeder from behind, and Rey had to fight to keep the vehicle firm on the repulsors. The sand swirled as she slid to a stop and got down. She pushed the speeder between two of the old, bent legs of the giant machine into the shelter. The sound of the storm was becoming deafening, the wind an almost constant screech, mixed with the cruel grinding of the sand rattling on the walker's helmet. A thunder crashed over Rey, making her cringe, and she squinted up at the sky in time to see the last rays of the sun being devoured by the turbulent clouds of dust. A dry beam drew a bow and lit the sky, as if the daylight had suddenly come back, for a second. Whens he closed her eyes she could still see the flash of lightning. The blows of the sand stung her skin, while the wind tried to grab her by the feet and lift her up, so she had to fight to make her way along the hull with handholds. She barely managed to open the makeshift door enough to stumble in and then, just as quickly, slammed it shut once more.

For a moment, Rey stood in the darkness of her home, catching her breath, listening to R'iia's anger outside. The sound had been muffled, but still it could be heard through the walker's armored helmet. She fumbled for a moment before finding one of her lamps and flipped the key. The light flickered faintly at first and then stabilized with a warmer glow.

Rey sighed, took off her boots and emptied them of sand. She brushed off her clothes and hair. When she finished, she had at her feet a substantial portion of the desert of Jakku and felt about ten pounds lighter.

Thunder crashed over her head again, vibrating through the walker's metal frame. Several pieces of scrap metal jumped. One of the old helmets fell from where it was hanging on an improvised hook.

The walker Rey was living in, was once Hellhound Two, from the Imperial Star Destroyer; Rey resided in what was once the main compartment for the walking tank troops, but that had been when the machine was standing. There she cleaned equipment rescued from the sand, cooked, slept and dreamed of the day when her family would return and take her away from Jakku.

The interior had long since not housed any reusable fragments and now it looked more like a crowded workshop than anything else. Rey had gotten a generator in a trade a couple of years ago, so he had energy when she needed it, especially for the workbench where she disassembled and reassembled and, more often, rebuilt from scratch the usable stuff that she got.

Unkar always paid more for the artifacts that still worked.

Through a thin crack in the hull, Rey sensed another sudden flash, more dry lightning. She picked up one of the blankets from the floor and used it to cover the crack. She secured it with three of the few magnets she had taken out of a shattered turn-stabilizer. The girl approached her loot, hidden under one of the side panels, unscrewed the iron and removed one of the three bottles of water that she had hidden inside. She drank to clean her mouth from the desert sand, swallowed with a grimace, covered the bottle again with care and, with the same caution, returned it to its hiding place before securing the panel.

She sat in a pile formed by other blankets and rested her head on the back of the hull, listening to the storm hit her house, full of fury.

She closed her eyes feeling, for the first time in a long time, very lonely.

* * *

Surprisingly, the _X'us R'iia_ this time lasted only one day.

Rey finished one of the water bottles, trying to ration them and quench her thirst, because she didn't know how long it would be before she could go to Niima for more.

She had rigged up a computer using pieces recovered from different starfighters over the years, including a cracked but still usable screen from an old Y-Wing BTL-A4. It didn't have radio communication as such (Rey had no way to transmit or receive and, to be honest, no one she wanted to talk to, in any case) but even so, in the remains of a Zephra series freighter she had once found a handful of data chips and, after having thoroughly reviewed them, discovered three with their programs intact; one of them, to her delight, had been a flight simulator.

So when she wasn't sleeping or just sitting, listening to the storm or fiddling at her desk, she was flying. It was a good program, or at least she believed it was. She could select any type of ship to pilot, from small atmospheric vessels powered by repulsors, going through a great variety of fighters to a good selection of frigates. She could choose the destinations, worlds she had never visited and which she didn't think she would ever visit, and situations, from speed races or obstacle courses to system failures. At the beginning she had failed in each simulation, literally crashing just a couple of seconds after takeoff. With nothing better to do and with the perverse determination that she would not let herself be defeated by a machine that she had built with her own hands, she learned. She learned so much that there was not much the program could offer her now that it was a challenge. She had reached the point where, deliberately, she did everything she could think of to put the difficult things on, just to see if she could emerge victorious. Atmospheric reentry at full power with faults in the repulsion motor? No problem. Multiple cracks in the hull in deep space with burning engine? Peace o cake.

At least it was a way to pass the time 'till the storm was over. And it was over sooner than expected, the _X'us R'iia_ used to last at least three days. She remembered the flashes of the ships that had streaked the sky in front of the storm, dangerously close to it. Perhaps some of them had fallen and there were some remains to look for parts.

Rey felt weak, thinking the storm would last longer, she rationed her food reserves and now needed some sustenance if she wanted to go out into the scorching desert to work. She took a quarter of her portion to appease her empty stomach and threw herself into the desert in search of subsistence. After a few hours, Rey no longer had much hope of finding something good. She had lost the morning, and by the time she had brought her speeder to the cemetery limits, it was late afternoon. Whatever the storm had revealed would have already been claimed. While driving, she saw small groups of scrap dealers working on new ship wrecks. Many people worked in teams, assuming that they could cover more land, but Rey worked alone and always had. It was easier to do it without people: fewer complications, fewer things to worry about. The only person she had to trust was herself. She drove further, beyond the easy booties, to the steepest terrain. She felt better, the food had satisfied her hunger, at least for the time being, and she accelerated the speeder. Rey slipped fast and safely, enjoying thrilled the power and acceleration of the machine. She had had the shp for years, she had built it herself, like so many other things, and if she could afford to feel proud of something, this made her proud.

The cemetery wasn't, to be precise, a single area, but a vast extension. You could walk for miles without perceiving signs of anything, reach the crest of a dune and suddenly find yourself contemplating a field of remains from above. However, the storm had done more than discover new booties; it had changed the terrain and reconfigured the desert, and it was not until she met The Crunching and saw the Quill that she realized how far she had come, how long she had been driving. The Crunching was one of the few constants of the desert, marked by the almost completely vertical spine of a gigantic capital ship -the Quill- half buried in the ground. Nobody knew what kind of ship it had been, whether republican, imperial, or any other type of earlier times factions; it was impossible to tell because all that was left of it was the silhouette of the keel, rising from the ground, and some twisted support beams clinging to what was left of the frame. The rest of the ship had just disappeared, destroyed in the explosion of plasma that had caused its impact. The heat had been so intense that it had scorched the desert sand, burning it so fast and at such a high temperature that it had turned the ground into blackened glass. Over time, the crystal had broken into smaller and smaller pieces, in the process of becoming sand again, but when you drove or walked on the ground, you heard it creak, with echoes that seemed to whisper for miles. That was the Crunching.

Rey paused before reaching the Quill, squinting at the sun as she parted a corner of the cloth that covered her face. About two more hours of light, she calculated, and she would need almost all that time to return home. The temperature plummeted at night, as freezing as it was hot during the day. In addition, the little wildlife that lived in that part of Jakku appeared during the darkness, and for the most part they were predators, as desperate to survive as all other living beings in the area. Herds of _gnawjaws_ roamed the night, carnivores that ran on six legs and fed of warm blood. Being trapped in the dark was not a good idea. She undertook the return discouraged, there would be no loot that day.

She took a detour to avoid the groups of scrap merchants who were finishing their work and she deviated in a new large dune that was now located to the west of her home. As she rerouted the course of her speeder in the direction of her AT-AT, a strange mound caught her attention. She approached slowly and recognized the cockpit of an X-Wing. She couldn't tell the model, the rest of the aircraft was covered in sand. She dismounted from the speeder and with her staff in hand, she moved closer.

As almost everything she possessed, Rey's staff was saved from the remains that dirtied Jakku. Self-defense was a must for a Jakku scavenger, and Rey had earned respect for her skills and her willingness to use it if she was forced.

The desert, with the sunlight hiding in the dunes, was completely silent. The ship didn't emit signs of life and that was something common in the Cemetery but Rey had the feeling that this ship was different. It was new. It was alive.

She got close to the wrecked nose of the X-Wing and advanced until she reached the cabin of the pilot. It was intact but the rest of the ship was not, the sand that covered it formed a mound too small for it to be complete. Rey began to clear a part of the sand that covered one of its sides. It was an X-wing T-70. Faster than the T-65 of the Alliance era, the X-Wings were the flagship of the Resistance; they were easily maneuverable to attack the TIE fighters in aerial combats, but powerful enough to knock down the large armored ships. This X-Wing in particular had a blue stripe painted near the hatch that freed the cockpit from the hull. Rey's heart beated faster, could it be possible that this ship belonged to the Resistance?, one of those intrepid pilots of whom she had heard so much and had admired since she was a little girl?. Carefully she unlocked the cockpit and opened it. Her eyes met a small figure wearing the vibrant orange suit she knew so well and a helmet very similar to the one she used for fun. The figure didn't move. But Rey didn't think the pilot was dead. She extended her right hand slowly towards the shoulder of the person that lay motionless and shook it slowly. Nothing. She tried again, this time with more vigor. The pilot moved her head slowly in Rey's direction. Her eyes did not focus well on the figure in front of her. A trickle of blood flowed from her temple. She tried to utter a word but lost consciousness again. Rey, alarmed, did the only thing she could do in such a situation. Minutes later, her speeder could be seen plowing the sands of Jakku at full speed, in the direction of her walker.

* * *

Jessika felt movement around her but her body didn't seem to respond. She wanted to open her eyes, move, scream. But nothing happened. She remained motionless. The hit of her X-Wing against the arid surface of Jakku was violent and sudden. The cabin had survived but the blows to her body were many. The sandstorm had fallen upon her as she lost consciousness. Then she didn't remember anything. Maybe she had not even survived.

She was inclined to think that if it weren't for the stinging headache she felt on the right side of her head. One of her knees felt strange and the pain in her left wrist was dull and persistent.

In a moment she felt as the cabin of her ship opened, a figure emerged over her but Jessika couldn't distinguish who or what it was. It touched her, she felt the electricity of that touch on her shoulder. Jess tried to say something, but her body refused to cooperate. The effort caused her to lose consciousness again.

It had been a while since that encounter. Now she was somewhere else, she couldn't see anything but it wasn't hership, that was for sure.

The cold that had begun to invade her before was slowly disappearing. She was in a warm but dark place.

He tried to open his eyes again and this time he got it. Although his sight was still blurred, he could distinguish some things from his surroundings. I was inside a ship, but it was not flying, it was firm on the ground.

Suddenly, in her field of vision entered a small but slender figure, it was a woman. A human girl.

Jess tried to greet her but only managed to emit a helpless sigh. But that caught the attention of the woman.

"You're awake" the young girl whispered. She definetly sounded like a young girl.

The girl approached Jessika and touched her shoulder again.

"Drink this"

Jess felt that same electricity travel through her body from where the girl was touching her. Then a cold container touched her lips and the fresh liquid caressed her throat as a balm for her senses. She didn't know she was so thirsty until she tasted the water the girl offered her.

Still, she tried not to drink too much. She hadn't regained full control over her entire body. She had questions and she needed answers.

"W ... Where am I?" her voice sounded harsh, almost unrecognizable.

"Goazon Badlands, in Jakku. It lies between Niima Outpost to the east and Kelvin Ravine to the west, and bounded on the north and south by Sinking Fields and Carbon Ridge, respectively."

The succession of words was quick and precise. Jess managed to smile at her.

"I found you in the desert, east of the cemetery of ships. I thought bringing you here would be the best option"

Jessika took a slow breath, as if checking the function of her lungs.

"Where is _here_ , exactly?"

" _Here_ is... my home" the girl said almost in a whisper.

* * *

 _ **Hope you guys like where this is going so far.  
**_ _ **Apologies in advance since English in not my first lenguage and there's bound to be mistakes all arond  
**_ _ **Please, if you like it (or not) leave a review :D**_


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